President Trump’s push to take back control of the strategic waterway stokes memories of a period of U.S. imperial ambition and violence.

Trump has suggested using military force to retake the Panama Canal, but such an action would involve complications.

President Donald Trump has called for the US to retake control of the Panama Canal unless the cost of passage for naval and merchant ships is slashed. Trump’s refusal to rule out the use of force is a throwback to the 19th century era of gunboat diplomacy.

Russia’s foreign ministry has called on Trump to reaffirm the current international agreement surrounding the Panama Canal and to leave it in control of the nation of Panama.

In recent weeks, when he was President-elect Donald Trump publicly said that Panama should return the Panama Canal to the United States, and he would not rule out using military force to reclaim it. At his presidential Inauguration on Monday Trump doubled down on saying that his new administration was going to take back the canal.